Lost
by Mitsukai Tacchi
Summary: Taemin remembers a time when he got lost. SHINee one-shot. Lost. Being lost. There are no words to describe the way it feels. It’s like the entire world is stretched out before your terrified eyes and you just don’t know where to go.


_**Lost**_

__Lost. Being lost. There are no words to describe the way it feels. It's like the entire world is stretched out before your terrified eyes and you just _don't know where to go._

Sometimes you can ask for directions, sometimes you just find your war, but other times you don't. You can be standing amongst a crowd of people but no one, not one of them can relieve the stranded feeling that crushes your chest, closes your throat, throws your heart into a panicked frenzy.

Sure you might know that you'll be fine. Maybe you'll wander around for a while but, what's the worst that can happen? _It just doesn't matter_.

I would know because I went through it. It was one of those days where I was just completely lost in thought. Thinking is a beautiful thing; I really didn't understand why other people didn't see that; I still don't.

Thinking enables someone to become lost in the never ending abyss of their mind. The entire world could be in chaos but the mind, my mind, is a place that I can always go to hide, to escape. The only problem with it is that I would travel too deep into my mind. I would look without seeing. Listen without hearing. My body would be physically there, but mentally, I was miles away.

That's how it happened, actually. Mom and Dad, I mean Kibum and Jinki, had decided to take the kids, meaning Jonghyun, Minho, and I, shopping. Kibum had just insisted that he needed a new electric blanket for his bed, thus resulting in a family shopping trip.

I hated shopping. I hated it with a _**burning passion**_, I still do. There was just something about stores and being forced to start at endless rows of alterations of the same product. It was torture.

We had been browsing through the linens in a large department store, connected to a local mall. Jonghyun and Minho had disappeared off to an arcade just moments after we arrived, leaving me with the parents. It wasn't their fault, though. They had invited me to go with them but Kibum, being the over protective mother of the group, decided that it wasn't safe; he wanted me with him. I had almost asked Jinki for back up but thought better of it; one look from his 'wife' and his side would be the same as Kibum's.

I had been mindlessly staring at a random box, lost in thought like usual, when I had a horrifying realization; Kibum and Jinki were gone. At first I thought that they would be right around the corner. They had probably just wandered into the next aisle, assuming that I was right behind them. I was sadly mistaken.

When I reached the end of the aisle, I realized that my hyungs could have gone _anywhere_. They weren't in any of the aisles beside me and I was beginning to get nervous.

After about five minutes of searching, I began to panic. I reached into my pocked in search of my cell phone and was utterly horrified to find that is was missing. In the back of my mind, I vaguely remembered recalled lending it to Jonghyun a few hours prior, but the only thing crossing my mind was that I needed to fine my hyungs.

I couldn't go to security and have them use the loud speakers because that would blow our cover. Every one of us was wearing a disguise, mostly consisting of sunglasses and hoodies. If security called for a Kim Kibum, there would be uproar.

Trying to pull myself together, I chose my next best option; to find Jonghyun and Minho. I knew where the arcade was, having been there a few times myself, and about ten minutes after the separation, I was standing in front of it.

That's when I really began to panic. _They weren't there_. Gone. There was no sign of them anywhere and I didn't know what to do. Then the tears started to fall.

Without control and out of no where, they came. Endless the salt water forced its way out of my terrified eyes and burned a path down my numb face. I was absolutely helpless. I was terrified, horrified, no, those words don't even begin to describe how I felt.

It didn't matter that I was in no real danger. My heart was pounding like an erratic drum. My hands were shaking harder that I thought possible. My eyes were blurred with the stinging tears that fell to my lips that were desperately pulling in air that didn't seem to satisfy my heaving lungs. _I was suffocating_.

But then, seemingly out of no where, a familiar face appeared in the crowd. He looked as sick and scared as I felt and his eyes were going every where. And then, he saw me. And then he ran.

Within moments, his protective arms were wrapped around my sobbing body. His hands pulled me into his chest and my head into the crook of his neck where I buried my forehead. I could feel his heavy heartbeat pounding against the warm skin on his neck and the wetness of a few stray tears that had made their way past his chin.

"Don't you ever do that to me again!" Kibum sobbed. His right hand slid up my trembling back and tightly wound itself into my hair, holding me as tight as he possibly could.

"I'm sorry!" I cried, throwing my arms tightly around his shaking chest. "I won't! It was an accident."

"I was so scared, Taemin. I thought a fan had gotten you or something. God, Taemin, I don't know what I'd do if something happened to you. They'd have to sedate me. You are never being out of my sight again."

I merely nodded my head in response. I couldn't even bring words to my still trembling lips. I just wanted him to hold me. To let him show me that it was okay.

Kibum never let me out of his arms after that. Even when he called the others to let them know that he had me, at lease one of his arms was always protectively around my back; my face never left his neck, either.

Jinki was the first to arrive. Unlike Kibum and me, he kept his emotions in check. That didn't prevent him from pulling me into his fatherly arms, though, even if it was awkward due to Kibum refusing to let me go.

Jonghyun and Minho arrived together a few moments later. Apparently, they had left the arcade when Kibum called to inform them that I'd been lost, not thinking that I would go there. They, too, threw their arms around me and cried. They did it with less emotion than Kibum did, but the feeling was still the same.

My hyungs were my direction. They were the things that kept me going, they were what I thanked God for every night. Even in the most dire of situations, they could show me the way. Even when I was lost, they could find me. Without them I had no direction. Without them, I had no where to go.

_Screw home; there's no place like my brother's arms._


End file.
